


Savior (of my soul)

by AngeNoir



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: (no real harm just implied plans to harm), Community: picfor1000, Gen, Harm to Children, Implied/Referenced Terrorism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 06:23:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10380420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: Where thehellwas his back-up?... Clay wasn't going to make him go through with this, right?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written with [this](https://www.flickr.com/photos/mccain007/3446776441/) picture as inspiration.

The swings were bright blue. He didn’t know why the color grabbed his attention, stood out so strong, but seeing them was a sort of visceral punch in his gut.

“Hey!”

Jensen tore his eyes away from the playset and tried to shake himself out of his own head. Out of other memories that involved dead kids, callous orders and leaders.

He had to stick to the plan.

(Not that he particularly _liked_ this plan, considering he had no backup and he wasn’t placed far and away doing tech stuff the way he normally was and he didn’t really like anything about this plan at _all_ , thanks Clay.)

“So just set it up anywhere?”

Big and Ugly both turned around. They had proper names – Jensen was storing away information and things like passwords, accounts, and schedules – but Jensen dealt with the horrendous reality with ridiculous nicknames he kept behind his teeth.

For the most part. He had accidentally called one of them Weasel, which had led to some fancy dancing to explain _that_ away.

“Did you miss part of the plan or something?” Ugly asked.

Jensen bit his tongue and mentally counted to fifteen as he shrugged his shoulders. “Look, the plan said to just place the bomb in the playground. Did you, like, want it buried, or under the castle, or hidden up in, I dunno, the pointy triangle roof there?”

“Just set it down,” Big growled.

Both of them were in blackface – or brownface, Jensen supposed. They had some coloring on their face to make them look more swarthy, more ‘Arab,’ and they had colored their hair, making it darker, and glued (what Jensen believed were truly horrendous and unconvincing) beards onto their faces. The bomb in Jensen's bag was covered in random Arabic letters - all the easier to point blame on immigrants.

Homegrown terrorists. You had to love their unoriginality.

It was early enough in the morning that mist and fog still clung to the ground, fall leaves scattered around this edge of the playground. Come afternoon, it’d be a busy place – Jensen had heard the whole plan, seen these terrorists’ surveillance and their record-keeping, and once the school down the street let out, a lot of latch-key kids came to hang out on the playground. Young and old, from little elementary students to teenagers in high school, kids regularly frequented this playground in high numbers.

That was the point, after all. Maximum impact. Senseless violence.

Jensen set the black bag down on the ground, near the jungle gym. He didn’t know where Cougar was, where any of his backup was. It wasn’t supposed to go this far. Aisha and Clay had been sure that Max, the suspected founder and funder of these neo-Nazis, would have shown up by now, or at least given them their next lead to follow. Last night, when Jensen had slipped away to contact Clay, he had had to admit that there was still no concrete proof of Max’s involvement; no way to track Max through this lead.

Clay had told Jensen to sit tight. Not to give himself away.

“Hey!”

Jensen looked up to see Ugly pointing at the swing set. “Set it up there. Get moving, we got maybe five more minutes before we’re out.”

The swing set was nearer picnic tables – tables that, in the late afternoon, would have nannies and parents, grandparents and babysitters, all congregating. It was closer to the castle, too, where little children would scramble and swarm over like locusts.

Well. They were supposedly going for maximum impact, after all.

“It’s harder to hide there,” he pointed out. “Kids might kick it. Reveal it. They run all over that thing and between the poles.”

“Set it up there,” Ugly repeated, as if Jensen hadn’t said anything.

With a studiously casual shrug, Jensen meandered back to the misty swings, staring out through the tree trunks blankly, trying to figure out how to set it up without really setting it up, trying to figure out if he should really just make it easy to find. At least then someone would be notified.

But no, if a kid was curious enough to dig at a mound of dirt, they would likely poke at the bag. The wrong jostle, if it was armed, could set it off prematurely.

And Jensen didn’t have the controller that would arm it. That honor was reserved for their dear old leader, a Mr. Robert Spicer.

A shadow in the edge of his vision made him tense imperceptibly. For a brief moment, it looked like someone had been standing out there by the far trees.

Someone wearing a cowboy hat.

“Chris, hurry it up!” Big snarled.

Jensen waved a hand and dropped to his knees, as if to begin burying the black bag.

One, and then two, muffled barks of concussive force. There was no other noise besides that, and no sound from Big and Ugly, except two muffled thuds.

There wouldn’t be any more sounds from either of them again.

Letting out a shaky sigh, Jensen stood up. “Cutting it close, Cougs, don’t you think?”

Cougar stepped out from behind the farthest tree, the mist making him look ethereal.

It took him a few seconds, and then Jensen let out a sigh. “Clay didn’t send you, did he?”

Cougar dropped his gaze.

For a moment, Jensen did nothing, just absorbed what that meant, what Clay had been willing to let happen – or risk having happen, at the very least – in order to get definitive proof of Max’s involvement. And then he let out a shaky breath. Clay was going further and further off the rails, something Aisha only encouraged.

He picked up the bag – gingerly – and made his quick way after Cougar. Pooch would figure out how to prevent the bomb from being disarmed, Jensen and Clay would get a dressing down from Clay, but for now…

For now, the crisis was averted, and Cougar had saved his ass – and his soul.

Again.


End file.
